


What Was Missing

by virmillion



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Not Really Character Death, Take it as you will, he's more of a concept than a character or a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-08-19 22:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16543487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virmillion/pseuds/virmillion
Summary: i don't think it's intentionally the same title as that one episode of adventure time but i'm honestly not mad about it,, anyway here's some nonsense that's mostly me playing around with prose and perspective





	What Was Missing

It started as most problems do in the mindscape—a sudden absence, a feeling that something was missing. Something, someone, who really knew anymore? With Roman gallivanting off to his room every odd day to fight another dragon witch, his booming voice was rarely missed so much as endured when it was present. Logan, research in hand, was oft to chain himself to a desk and not back away until his eyes were burning, eyelids heavier than his textbooks. Patton, so concerned with keeping everything together among the other three, rarely had a chance to shut himself away for some peace and quiet, no no no, his responsibilities were too great. But one day, one certain day that had no peculiar charm nor supernatural air about it, his duties felt…  _ shorter _ , somehow. There was less to be taken care of, but Patton could not for the life of him tell you why. At least, not until the gaping hole demanded it be noticed, not until it was screaming so hard and so loud, Patton might well have gone deaf in its efforts. The only problem with it being so loud and so insistent lies within its very nature—this absence is not the sort to announce itself, so much as it is the type to slink away quietly, to duck out when nobody's looking. Maybe this is why Patton initially seeks out Roman to inquire about his relaxed day. Maybe this is why Logan didn’t set down his research quickly enough. Maybe this is why they were too late.

“Hey there, kiddo,” Patton says one unremarkable morning, knocking gently on Roman’s door. The emptiness down the hall screams bloody murder, all consuming to each of Patton’s senses. Maybe this is why Patton is too disoriented to realize that, for once, Roman isn’t the source of the noise. Maybe this is why Roman cautiously eases the door open, one hand resting on the hilt of his blade, only to be met with the concerned face of the moral side.

“What’s up, Patton?” Roman replies, widening the door like screaming jaws as he lets his hand relax a bit from the sword. Not all the way, though.

“Something just feels off, y’know?” Patton struggles to put into words his feelings, his subconscious distracted by the cries and yells and shouts. “It’s as if the last few days have been really, I don’t know, simple? I haven’t had to do as much, and it just doesn’t feel right.”

“Can’t say I understand,” Roman apologizes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there is a dragon witch I really must be off to see. If you could be so kind?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Patton nods, backing out of the room as Roman draws his sword. Maybe the door closes too quickly for Roman to notice the strained look in Patton’s eyes, or the way he can’t quite seem to stop tugging his ear, like too much sound is being absorbed at once. Maybe the finality of Roman’s door slamming shut is what steers Patton away from what could have saved the absence.

At Logan’s room across the hall, Patton doesn’t bother with knocking on the door that’s already ajar, instead walking straight through the impossibly clean room to the hunched figure in the chair. It jerks awake as Patton taps it lightly on the shoulder, revealing Logan huddled under a mass of blankets, his eyes swollen pits of red and grey from inadequate sleep. The same blanket is bunched around the base of his chair as when Patton put it there two nights ago.

“What  _ is  _ it, Patton?” Logan demands, his eye twitching gently. Maybe it’s from overworking himself. Maybe he hears the cries, too. “I have very important work to be doing here, as you should very well know.”

“Well, yes,” Patton admits, “but you look as if the only work you’ve been doing is catching up on the sleep you never get. I had something else to bring up with you, but, um,” he glances over at Logan’s pristine bed, looking as impeccable as if it had never been slept in before. Patton has a sneaking suspicion this might be the case, but maybe he’s just a little tired, too.

“I have absolutely no requirement for such frivolous endeavours as  _ sleep _ ,” Logan scowls, disgust lacing every word. “You most of all should know that we hardly require any of that human nonsense, from sleep to hydration to food. With all of your silly baking festivities, I would expect you to have figured that out already.” Patton bites his lip before he can make some sort of joke out of the situation, knowing quite well that this isn’t the time. Maybe there’s never really a time to make a joke with any of them. Maybe the yells are in his head, and he just needs to let them pass over, like an angry storm cloud.

In his own room, Patton takes a few deep breaths, desperate to let the warm lights in his room soak through his skin, make the noises go away. Why should he be desperate, anyway? He’s had so much extra time, he got to see everyone in the mindscape today! Roman, and Logan, and—and—and—and—

The lights suddenly get brighter, too bright, as the yells crescendo, turning into shouts into screams then back into cries into sobs into whimpers into silence. Patton rubs his temples gently. Maybe he’s just overworked. Maybe he’s just exaggerating the problem. Lots of people hear things that aren’t there.  _ You’re not a person, Patton. _ Patton knows this. He  _ knows  _ that he’s not human, that there’s no reason for baking or sleeping or drinking, but it’s all in good fun. All for enjoyment. The yelling is not enjoyment. He did not ask for the yelling. In fact, he would much prefer to have the yelling silence itself. Maybe he’ll go take care of it himself.

\--------

_ It’s impossibly cold out here _

_ Way up on the highest tier _

_ Why haven’t they come? _

_ It’s all so numb _

_ I can’t seem to recall the year _

\--------

“Now where is that blasted dragon witch?” Roman mutters to himself, stalking silently through the cattail reeds, sword drawn. Itching for something,  _ anything _ , to fight, Roman lashes out at a blade of grass in front of him. Before he can mow it down, the noise returns. Quite obnoxious, to be frank, but indelible nonetheless. It skewers through his skull, screaming as his sword swings, stopping it short to smack the grass blade and allowing the green spike to swipe back at him, scratching the side of his face. Louder, louder, the noise mumbles and moans and mourns and Roman must move on, make more progress meeting his maker in the scaled madam making her monstrosities as Roman remains in the reeds. The noise gets louder. Roman chops through the sea of grass. The screams cut across his clothes, criss-crossing so crassly the prince can almost catch the cutlass in his hand.

Somewhere ahead, a dragon roars, undercut by a woman’s scream. Not a damsel in distress. This damsel is the distress. Damn. Roman throws his arms over his head, squeezes his biceps, anything to make that screaming  _ shut up. _ Not enough. He backs carefully out of his room, head pounding, sword thrown haphazardly in its scabbard, and the whole package is tossed into the reeds. That’s a problem for later. Roman’s head pounds harder, hurting,  _ hurts oh God help him _ he heaves with his hands on his knees hearing every helpless howl hammering through his head  _ help him please help. _

In the lounge, the furthest room possible from the yelling screaming cursing crying, Roman collapses upon a couch. Something under his back, sharp and prodding, makes him sit up. A pair of bulky headphones.  _ Now where on earth could these have come from? _ Regardless of the reason, Roman slips them over his ears, expecting some sort of punk song to carry him away, tuning out the cries for help.

Why though? Why does he expect a punk song to come on? He doesn’t even know where these headphones came from, any more than he can explain away the screaming that grows ever louder. Why is it  _ so. Loud? _

“Oh thank gosh Roman you’re out here,” Patton sighs in relief, stumbling into the lounge area with one fist curled against his head. Worry lines etch themselves into his face, deeper than if they’d been there for years. Replacing something else that was there for years. Or never there. “Why are you just sitting down? I’d expect you to at least be doing something exciting.”

“I am, I’m listening to the—the head—the headphones—the headphones.” Roman’s voice trips over itself, warping and warbling, where were the headphones why wasn’t he holding the headphones was he ever holding the headphones why weren’t they there when were they there?

“Okay buddy, whatever you say,” Patton smiles, not seeming to notice the little… we’ll call it a  _ glitch _ … in Roman’s system. “Want some cookies?”

“Don’t you do anything else besides bake?” Roman sneers. Something pushes at his mind, the yelling, thoughts, something, but it screams and cries to stop, not to get going on an argument he wants no part in. The yelling is louder. “Last I checked, we all had  _ real _ duties to perform to help Thomas, and making cookies at the drop of a hat isn’t exactly a useful skill to a living person with real thoughts and feelings.” Roman gives Patton a once-over, suddenly standing—when did he stand up he was supposed to be sitting down—and continues, ignoring the hurt welling up in his companion’s eyes. “Oops, I guess that would imply that you, feelings, are real. My bad.”  _ Stop it Roman stop hurting him stop it! _

“Right. I’ll just, um, I’m just gonna be over, y’know, somewhere that isn’t, uh, isn’t in here.” Patton rushes out, both hands pressed against his face now. Roman sags a bit, sitting standing sitting standing kneeling sitting standing sitting standing sitting sitting sitting sit still. Bounce bounce bounce back and forth between being everywhere and being nowhere and being everything in between. The screaming increases.  _ Help. _

\--------

_ It’s probably been but a day _

_ You were always just in the way _

_ They don’t know it’s you _

_ Your screams coming through _

_ Forgotten, you may as well stay _

\--------

“Honestly, how am I expected to get important work done for Thomas when I’m plagued by that infernal sound?” Logan mutters, whipping the blanket off of his back. Who does Patton think he  _ is _ , intruding on Logan’s privacy like that without asking? The blanket is still in the way, crumpled in a heap over his feet, so Logan does the most logical thing he can think of—kicking it across the room, getting progressively more pissed each time it doesn’t cooperate by breaking the laws of physics. Is that really so much to ask?

The blanket finally beaten into submission, Logan makes for the commons, a permanent grimace set upon his face as the yelling recedes behind him. Expecting a calm scene in which he can bask in silence, Logan is sorely disappointed by what greets him in the lounge; Patton staring at a wall, motionless, and Roman sitting standing sitting standing not holding still. How displeasing.

“Have you two seriously lost your grip so easily?” Logan demands, freezing Roman in place and getting Patton to snap his head over. “Regardless of why this sound is occurring, we all need to work together to resolve it.”

“All?” Roman asks. Patton echoes him, softer and more unsure.

“Yes. All.”

“But we aren’t all here.”

“I can’t say I understand what you mean. You, me, and Patton. All.”

“But that’s not, I mean, it isn’t like we just—”

“Roman, I have never known you to fumble for words so largely as this,” Logan scolds. “All. Three of us. That is all. Now, if you’re done with whatever your situation is, we really need to get back to the task at hand—getting rid of that sound.” Roman casts his eyes down, face burning, but he’s finally sitting down, and staying that way. The cries get louder.

“Patton, care to share your input?” Patton mutters something about the days being easier, the same spiel he fed Logan not long before. “Not that. Something useful would be nice.” Patton quiets, biting his lip. A tinge of something, regret perhaps, floods through Logan for a split second, but just as quickly, it vanishes.

“Okay. Alright. What’s missing?” Logan tries. His glasses slip down his nose. He does not adjust them.

“It’s really loud,” Roman offers, “so it must have been important.”

“Then why can’t I remember it?” Patton hisses, gripping his forehead tightly. His fingers go white. Louder.

“Maybe it was just annoying, and this is its lingering irritation,” Logan says.

“It’s down at the end of the hall with our rooms,” Patton begins, flinching at nearly every word. Too loud. Make it  _ stop. _ “Maybe we could investigate down there?”

“I second it,” Roman replies. “It’s as good a place to start as any.” As one, not dissimilar to a hive mind, the trio rises—when did Logan sit down?—and move toward the screeching. Ice cold laces through their blood, frozen fingers creeping down their backs as their ears seem to split. If you asked them later, none of the three could tell you whether their feet walked them down the hall, or the room pulled itself closer, using their agony as a grappling point. Louder. Deafening. One way or another, they arrive at the screaming door, vibrating from the noises coursing through it, all amplified by the door itself. The bravest of the bunch, Roman, cowers in fear. He’s not about to touch that monstrosity. The brain of the bunch, Logan, knows in his mind that the door can’t really hurt him. He does not reach for the handle. Patton. Patton stretches a hand, fingers trembling as the sound leaps across the axons and the dendrites to his nails and skitters through his bones, weaving between muscles and fat to fill him up until he’s gasping, choking, overflowing. Patton opens his mouth to let it escape, and the screeching heightens. Louder.  _ Louder. LOUDER. _

Screaming and crying and shouting and moaning all at once, Patton wrestles the door handle down and presses forward, first with the handle, then his other hand, and his shoulder and his foot and Logan and Roman join in, pounding the door that refuses to give way to their attacks on it.

The handle shatters in Patton’s hand.

The screaming stops.

A soft sigh takes its place.

Then silence.

\--------

_ They’re actually trying to look _

_ All because your voice is a hook _

_ Here you remain _

_ Your ears unstained _

_ Maybe now you should close the book _

\--------

Patton glances at the shards of metal in his hand, then back to Logan and Roman. He’s so stunned, he almost can’t feel the edges digging into his skin, feel the tiny red pearls beading at the surface. He holds them tighter, trying desperately to hold onto what the three all realized before it can vanish again.

_ Virgil. _

__ _ We forgot Virgil. _

__ “Patton, your hand,” Roman murmurs, looking at the offending body part that refuses to let go of the handle, refuses to let go of what he can’t believe he forgot. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to remember.

“We need to get that wrapped up,” Logan adds. He takes Patton gently by his free hand, pulling him down the hall toward the commons, where they keep a few first aid kits, just in case.

_ We forgot Virgil. _

__ Suddenly, Patton is in the commons, barely wincing as Logan carefully wraps bandages around his hand, Roman extracting the shards of metal as he goes. Maybe each stab is a fraction of what Virgil felt.

_ We forgot Virgil. _

__ Maybe Virgil forgot them.

Patton looks on blankly as Logan finishes, gently tightening the wrapping and tying it off. “We need to help him,” he mumbles. Logan waves it off, checking the floor for any lost metal pieces. “We need to help him.”

“We need to figure out why he’s gone first,” Logan retorts. “We don’t know why he left, and we don’t want to make it worse. At least it’s finally quiet.”

_ We forgot Virgil. _

__ “Yeah, remember how we left it last?” Roman cuts in. Patton shakes his head.

“It all kind of went foggy right up until that screaming.”  _ Virgil’s screaming. _

__ “There was an argument,” Logan begins.

“Thomas was having a social problem,” Patton continues.

“He was worrying,” Roman fills in.

“We told him off.”

“He went silent.”

“Didn’t even fight back.”

“Sank out.”

“No sarcasm.”

_ We forgot Virgil. _

__ “We need to help him.”

“We still only have the vaguest of reasons for his disappearance,” Logan says. “We cannot afford to make it any worse, if this is the least we’ve seen of what is involved with a missing Virgil.” A missing Virgil. A thing to be fixed. Not a friend to be found.

“Maybe the room will tell us,” Patton whispers. Grasping at straws. Anything.

_ We forgot Virgil. _

__ “Right, the room that shattered the thing you need to get inside of it. Brilliant, Patton, truly a work of genius,” Roman sneers, bouncing between sitting and standing again.

“Not the time for attitude,” Logan reprimands. “It’s the only idea we have to go off of, so we may as well, given the lack of success shown by ignoring the noise.”

“Not noise. Virgil.” Patton sniffles.

_ We forgot Virgil. _

__ Patton is the first to rise and head for the door with no handle, now a deafening silence in contrast to the aching screams of earlier. Logan follows, all efficiency and strategy, despite the fact that no one is really sure what to do next.

“Even if we find out why he’s missing, that won’t bring him back,” Roman complains. “Besides, do we really  _ need  _ the Edgelord back?” Patton clenches his undamaged fist in an effort not to do something he’ll regret later.

Through gritted teeth, he spits, “of  _ course  _ we need him back. He’s one of  _ us _ .”

With no small amount of discomfort in the air, the trio makes their way to the silent door, each peering down and squishing in to try to see through the hole left by the door handle.

Only gaping space beyond.

\--------

_ You know, it’s really not so bad like this _

_ They claim to regret, yet remain remiss _

_ You like being alone _

_ This could be a home _

_ This is how you leave, vanished like a wisp _

\--------

“Move aside,” Roman orders, stepping back with his sword drawn. Patton and Logan leap out of the way of the door as Roman charges. He raises his sword, giving a battle cry, and barrels forward.

The door opens.

Roman’s momentum carries him through, swinging his sword regardless as the door slams shut behind him. Patton and Logan remain outside.

His sword goes flying into an endless abyss of stars and blackness. The red sash across his white attire tightens, constricting and squeezing like a viper before completely tearing off at the shoulder. Now a limp ribbon, it follows the sword into nothingness.

“What’s going on?” Roman attempts, but his voice is too hoarse, too small, lost in everything and nothing. The world around him seems to expand by the second, nothingness multiplying by nothingness exponentially. Silent.

_ Where is Virgil? _

__ Sound.

Behind him.

Roman turns to where the door is—was. Gone. Above it, a strip of nothingness with no stars in it. A silhouette against the shining lights. Roman blinks, shakes his head, blinks again, and he’s suddenly beside the silhouette, looking out at an endless expanse of space. He turns his head.

Virgil.

Before Roman can open his mouth, offer an explanation, ask for a reason, Virgil punches him in the face.

Hard.

Roman goes down.

Hard.

Virgil disappears, and the world splinters.

And shatters.

\--------

__ _ “Just shut up! Thomas doesn’t need you dragging him down like this!” _

__ _ “I hate to say it, kiddo, but Roman’s right. You really don’t need to be so… much.” _

__ _ “Indeed, your excessive overtime is dragging all of us down with you. Don’t you suppose you might feel better if you were to, perhaps, lay low? Stay quiet?” _

__ _ They’re always demanding your silence _

__ _ They never consider emotions violence _

__ _ Their words will bite _

__ _ Don’t put up a fight _

__ _ Just seclude yourself on your islands _

__ _ “Too good to talk back? Come on Virgil, where’s that dry wit? Hit me with it! Hit me!” _

__ _ “Roman, don’t taunt him. We don’t want him to get worse.” _

__ _ “It may not be in our best interest to discuss this in front of him.” _

__ _ You think your words aren’t ringing _

__ _ Hatred in their bite stinging _

__ _ But please have no fear _

__ _ I’ll soon not be here _

__ _ Not even a bell left dinging _

__ _ “I wish he’d just leave, we’d all be better off and he knows it.” _

__ _ “Now Roman—” _

__ _ “I don’t think you should—” _

__ _ “I hate him.” _

\--------

Roman blinks again, finally remembering.

_ Why did he say that? _ It was a moment of weakness and stupidity, and he wants nothing more than to take it back. A little hard to do, given that Virgil is nowhere to be seen. Just space. The vast sky. And Roman. Alone. No sword. No sash. No purpose.  _ What did you do? _

__ “I just want to know one thing,” a voice whispers, coming from every direction at once. Impossibly quiet, to the point that Roman has to strain to hear it. “Why did you say it?” The drawling, apathetic tone, in a voice otherwise identical to his own, it has to be Virgil.

“I didn’t mean it, it was just the heat of the moment, I swear—” Roman babbles.

“I didn’t ask for excuses. I asked for a reason.”

“I don’t have one! Because I’m stupid, okay? That’s why.”

“Unfortunate.”

Roman waits with bated breath for the voice to come back, even just to yell at him some more, anything but being alone in this room.

Silence.

Alone.

_ Please come back. _

__ Waiting.

Waiting.

“I just wanted to see the stars.” Roman glances to the right—the voice actually had a concentrated source this time. “You all forgot me, but no one forgets the stars.” A constellation takes shape in the distance, a vague silhouette of Virgil, unless Roman is just kidding himself. “No one forgets you.”

Before he can respond, Roman watches the world fall apart again, depositing him on the ground in an endless white space. He can’t tell where the walls end and the ceiling begins. The only thing standing out in this room, besides himself, is the black lacquer door. Stabbed through its center is his sword, his red sash twined around it.

The voice doesn’t come back.

Roman yanks the sword from the door with little resistance, fixing the sash over his shoulder. The door swings open. Patton and Logan are gone. He heads for the common area. Logan’s nose is buried in a book, while Patton stands at the counter icing cookies.

“Patton? Where’s, uh, where are your bandages?” Roman asks, looking at the hand that appears perfectly healed.

“Weird joke, Roman. Is that the kind of humor that’s hip with the kids these days?” Patton twirls an icing bag in the air. “I can be hip.”

“Logan, have you seen Virgil?” Roman asks as he moves out of the kitchen, leaving Patton to his cookies.

“Seen whom?” Logan doesn’t look up from his reading.

“Virgil! Anxiety? Hot Topic? Edgelord? J-Delightful?” Logan lifts an eyebrow and peers at Roman over his book.

“I will admit to not often utilizing humor, but even I know that this is not it.”

Roman leans against the back of the couch, suddenly unsteady as his mind is hit with too many thoughts at once. The most important one, the only one that truly matters, pierces his skull like so many unheard screams and cries.

_ They forgot Virgil. _


End file.
